It has "Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN
Controller". I've installed "firmware-b43-installer" and it worked.
But, after I've configured wpa_supplicant, I can connect to the
network, but have no Internet access. (Different kernels, including
the original, make no difference.)

(I could try the proprietary driver "wl", but I see it should not be
necessary and it is not "recommended".)

For testing purposes, I removed wpa_supplicant.conf and simplified interfaces:

Code:

root@ut-laptop[/home/heather]# cat /etc/network/interfaces
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

Rebooted and tried to connect with ceni. I used the "scan" option, but had exactly the same results: connected to the network, but no Internet access.

In case this helps... I have no idea about what else to try...

Thanks,

Luis

finotti

Post subject: RE: help setting up wifi Posted: 09.11.2013, 01:42

Joined: 2010-09-12
Posts: 469

Status: Offline

OK, I took the laptop home and it connects to my home network (and to the Internet) just fine... I am not sure what to make of it...

slh

Post subject: RE: help setting up wifi Posted: 09.11.2013, 01:44

Joined: 2010-08-25
Posts: 949

Status: Offline

Following your description, it basically should work already (although the Broadcom 802.11n chipsets are barely supported by b43 to begin with, no 'n' at all and neither 5 GHz support). Now it would be interesting to see if there are any error messages shown by dmesg and what happens if you leave "wpa_cli" running for a while (you can also request "info" in there or "quit"); of course, you'd need to configure /etc/network/interfaces to use wpa_supplicant again.

The proprietary Broadcom driver is certainly not recommended at all, but it may be the only option for this particular chipset. Broadcom appears to have mostly killed the existing developer base for b43, by strong arming their brcmsmac into the kernel - while at the same time only supporting a tiny subset of their product range through it, nor actually adding support for new stuff…

finotti

Post subject: RE: help setting up wifi Posted: 09.11.2013, 02:07

Joined: 2010-09-12
Posts: 469

Status: Offline

Thanks, slh. I will do some more testings on Monday.

finotti

Post subject: RE: help setting up wifi Posted: 13.11.2013, 02:25

Joined: 2010-09-12
Posts: 469

Status: Offline

I guess I had something wrong with my config files. After cleaning up my wpa_supplicant.conf and interfaces, it now works at work too. I can't see what was wrong, to be honest and don't understand why it did not work when I removed my files and used ceni, but at least I can connect.

The one caveat is that it doesn't seem to see the WPA wireless network at work, only the open, but that is good enough for me. (It sees and connects fine with my WPA wireless network at home, though...)